Enex S.A.E.C.A.

What it is

Enex S.A. (Empresa Nacional de Energía) is a Chilean fuel distributor and Shell licensee, born in 2011 as a subsidiary of Quiñenco, the holding company of one of Chile’s largest business groups, the Luksic family. At the end of 2019, Enex entered Paraguay; it now operates more than 50 service stations across the country under a modern convenience-retail concept.

The Paraguayan subsidiary’s core activity is the wholesale and retail trade of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels and related products. In Paraguay, the network covers 68 service stations and 28 convenience stores under the Enex and upa!

brands.

Who owns it

Enex Paraguay is controlled by Enex Investments Paraguay S.A., itself a subsidiary of Invexans S.A., which belongs to Grupo Quiñenco; as of November 2024 the network ran 66 stations, 32 operated by Enex directly and 34 by third-party franchisees. In February 2024, Enex Investments Paraguay S.A. formally acquired 100% of Enex Paraguay’s share capital, consolidating what had previously been a joint-venture structure.

Quiñenco itself is 81% owned by the Luksic family, the fourth-richest family in Latin America according to Forbes. The chain of control runs: Luksic family → Quiñenco S.A. (rated AA+ by Fitch) → Invexans S.A. → Enex Investments Paraguay S.A. → Enex Paraguay S.A.E.

Who runs it

Leonardo Valenzuela is General Manager (CEO) of Enex Paraguay, based in Asunción; he has said the Bolsa de Valores de Asunción became the company’s preferred financing venue given its broader access to long-term capital. The wider group’s CEO is Nicolás Correa, who leads Enex Corp Ltd globally.

A separate CFO for the Paraguay subsidiary is not disclosed in available sources.

The money, in plain words

Enex Paraguay took in about US$168 million in fuel and convenience sales in 2023, but the margin left over after buying fuel and running stations — its operating surplus before interest and depreciation (EBITDA margin) — was a razor-thin 1.8%. By the nine months to September 2024 that operating surplus had turned into a loss of PYG 27,158 million (≈ US$3.6 million), mainly because Paraguay’s state oil company, Petropar, pushed pump prices down sharply from August 2023, squeezing margins across the whole industry.

To keep the company alive and growing, its parent has injected roughly US$97 million in fresh capital between 2022 and 2024 — US$40 million in 2022, US$10 million in 2023, and US$47 million in 2024 — using each tranche to pay down debt and fund new stations. That support cut total financial debt from about US$69 million at end-2023 to US$37 million by September 2024 — a real improvement, even if the business is not yet self-funding.

The credit rating agency FIX SCR (a Fitch affiliate) still rates the company’s bonds at the very top of Paraguay’s national scale — AAApy — but explicitly notes that this top rating rests entirely on the expectation that the Luksic-controlled parent will keep providing support until the Paraguayan subsidiary can stand on its own cash flow.

What it is doing now

In February 2026, Enex Paraguay placed a second series of corporate bonds worth US$10 million on the Bolsa de Valores de Asunción — three-year paper at 5.80% annual interest — with proceeds earmarked for debt restructuring and working capital. By end-2024 the Paraguay network had reached 68 service stations and 28 convenience stores, the result of four new openings during the year.

Enex holds the 12th position in Paraguay’s fuel market with roughly a 2.6% volume share at its peak; its own target is to reach 4% market share by 2026, climbing from the current 12th place. At the group level, Quiñenco flagged for 2025 that Enex’s contribution recovered significantly from a 2024 loss, driven by volume growth across all three geographies and aided by the impairment of its Paraguay investment already booked in 2024.

What to watch

• Pump-price politics: Paraguay’s state oil company, Petropar, acts as the pricing benchmark; regulatory decisions on fuel prices directly determine whether Enex’s margins recover or stay negative.
• Parent support: The entire investment case hinges on Quiñenco’s willingness to keep injecting capital; any change in the parent’s own financial position or priorities would matter immediately.
• New-station freeze: A 2024 government decree suspended environmental approvals for new urban stations for five years, capping the network’s growth and shifting the company toward sweating existing assets rather than adding new ones.
• Volume recovery: FIX expects Paraguay’s GDP to grow around 4.5%, with agriculture driving higher diesel demand — the single variable most likely to lift Enex’s volumes and push it toward self-sustaining cash flow.

This is news, not investment advice.